Reducing Take-Home Work for ESL Teachers
This semester, one of my priorities was to reduce the amount of take-home work I have. Now, laziness isn’t one of my priorities, but eliminating busy work not only helps with my sanity, but it also gives me the mental space and time to focus on more important elements.
Here’s what I do in my attempt to limit that endless amount of work that teachers have:
Check homework in class
With the exception of the first few weeks of the semester (see my post about learning students’ names to read about why), I don’t take homework home. Teachers have enough lesson planning and grading to do at home—homework doesn’t belong at home too! I take the first few minutes of class (and the time before class starts) to walk around the room and check homework. This gives me a chance to talk with each student individually each class. Even if I don’t get the chance to come back over to them throughout the rest of the class, I can rest assured that I had a personal interaction with each student in each class.
Be mindful of assignments
If I’m checking homework in class, naturally I need to choose some simpler assignments. I won’t ask students to write a three-page paper because 1) That’s cruel and 2) I wouldn’t be able to check it easily in class. But this goes beyond just homework assignments. As I assign projects and exams, I try to stop and ask myself, “How much work will this be for the students?” “How much work will this be for me?” “Is this busy work for either of us?” and “Can this assignment be done in a more efficient way?” Sometimes I get caught up in a creative idea I had and miss the purpose of the assignment or realize the same language point could have been practiced in a much more efficient or simpler way.
Choose oral exams over written ones
Last fall, I wanted to mix things up. Generally, it’s expected that foreign teachers give oral English exams, but I decided to do a written mid-term exam. It was an idea I was really excited about, and students did well with it. But . . . I spent hours and hours and hours reading the exams after class, making corrections, and writing thoughtful feedback. And on top of all that, I still had to plan a lesson for that week since the mid-term consisted of just the two minutes it took for students to hand in their papers.
On the other hand, having oral English exams take place during class time saves planning time and also gives me the chance to analyze the exam and start giving feedback during class hours. This way, the only work that needs to be done after class is assigning grade percentages and finishing up feedback reports.
Give electronic feedback
This was a recent discovery, but once I realized it, trust me, I was kicking myself that I didn’t think of it sooner. This is how I used to grade and give feedback for my exams:
Have students give an oral English exam.
While students were talking, jot down notes so that I could give them feedback and a grade later. (These notes were basically illegible to anyone but me. I needed to make notes quickly and I didn’t want other students peeking at my comments.)
Go home and give students grades.
Re-write my feedback on paper in a more legible manner with simplified vocabulary and complete sentences.
Hand papers back to students during the next class.
Now it looks something like this:
Have students give an oral English exam.
While students are talking, type up notes on my laptop. Since I’m typing, I can write out full sentences. For common mistakes, I can copy and paste the same feedback for multiple students.
Go home and give students grades.
Hit spell check to make sure there are no typos, but no need to re-write anything since all the feedback was finished in class!
Any time before the next class, send the file to each student.
All four of these things have saved me time and energy, and allowed me to be less stressed and more present when I’m actually in class. And I’m definitely not going to complain about the extra free time!